Salman case: court orders inquiry into trial delay

A metropolitan court has said it would inquire into a complaint of delay in trial in the 2002 hit-and-run case against actor Salman Khan. Vilas Patil, additional metropolitan magistrate, Bandra, who is hearing the complaint by social activist Santosh Daundkar, will conduct the inquiry.

On the night of September 28, 2002, Khan's Toyota Land Cruiser had allegedly rammed a bakery in Bandra, killing one person and injuring four others sleeping on the pavement.

With the trial pending for 10 years, Daundkar, in his complaint, alleged that the prosecution had joined hands with Khan. The police also helped Khan to drag the case and produced false evidence to manipulate facts, the complaint alleged.

Bureaucrat-turned-lawyer Abha Singh, who represented Daundkar, said, “While other high profile cases were over within a few years, the case against Khan has been dragging for 10 years. The medical officers produced before the court were not the ones to whom summons were issued. There has been a manipulation of evidence.”

Denying the allegations, the prosecution filed a report before the court on Wednesday.

In the report, the police said so far, 17 witnesses have been examined and only one is left. The police had played no role in delaying the trial and had followed the due procedure, the report further said.

Denying the allegation of using false medical officers as witnesses, the report said when the court issued summons to the medical officers, they were served to the hospital.

By then, “as those medical officers had been transferred, the hospital had assigned others to depose before the court. Hence the prosecution has given no false information to the court and nor has caused delay in the trial”.